


when the world ends, will you laugh

by weasleytook



Category: Revenge (TV)
Genre: Apocalypse, F/M, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-26
Updated: 2012-10-26
Packaged: 2017-11-17 01:48:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/546292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weasleytook/pseuds/weasleytook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things come a lot easier to Emily after the apocalypse, a smile, a laugh, the ability to love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when the world ends, will you laugh

**Author's Note:**

  * For [galfridian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/galfridian/gifts).



> This is a birthday gift for my wonderful soulmate, Jess! We were discussing a Revenge-y apocalypse and well, here you go.
> 
> For everyone else, this is just a small slice of a MUCH larger story that is currently forming in my head and may get written after the holiday season is over. It takes place a few years after the apocalypse, hence some vagueness. 
> 
> Thanks to the beautiful Marie for being my second set of eyes!

There’s a routine. Every night the same thing. Emily checks the locks on all the doors and windows, even though she knows that if something or someone really wanted in here, all the locks in the world wouldn’t matter.

She makes sure the traps that Nolan invented to warn them of intruders are set and ready. 

Her next step is to check that all of their weapons are ready and loaded. Then she looks around the living room to ensure that everything is where it should be in case they need to make a quick exit.

There’s another step that isn’t part of the standard procedures, but it’s one she has to perform anyway. For herself.

She peeks in on Charlotte, sleeping soundly in the room at the front of the hallway. Charlotte is twenty-two now and would certainly resent being treated like she’s still a kid, but protecting Charlotte is one of the few things she has left in the world.

For almost two decades all she had was a search for truth and a plan for revenge, and all of that was taken away when the world as they knew it came to an end.

Emily leaves Charlotte’s doorway and heads to the end of the hallway where Nolan is lying on his side with his back to her. She checks the ammunition in her rifle and props it up on the nightstand next to the bed and lies down next to him.

“You awake?”

“Nuh-uh”, he mutters sleepily and she can’t help but laugh softly. If it’s weird that she laughs easier now than she ever did when the world was whole, he never mentions it.

Nolan rolls over so that he’s facing her and he’s clearly exhausted but manages to smile at her. “Everything as it should be?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

She touches the small white scars on his chest that will never fade and then leans in to kiss the bigger one on his shoulder. Emily hardly thinks about the helicopter crash that caused them, the one that nearly killed them all. She prefers to focus on now and what’s next instead of the past, something that’s changed since her days plotting revenge in the Hamptons.

“How much longer do you think we can stay here?”

“I don’t know. At least through the winter, I would hope.”

Emily slides her hand down his chest and gingerly grazes her fingers along his ribcage. She doesn’t let the scars remind her of what happened, but it does remind her that they have been able to survive this long as well as what is still to come.

She spent two thirds of her life with only one purpose in mind: to find out the truth about her father and to punish those who destroyed her life.

But in an instant that purpose was taken away from her and was replaced with a new purpose: survival. Not just her own, surviving was something she had been doing since the day she was ripped away from her father. She had to survive now in order to protect the few people in this world she actually cared about.

Nolan leans in and kisses her on the lips and it’s so warm and gentle and sweet that it’s become her favorite part of the day, when she gets to settle into bed next to him.

When she breaks it off, she smiles again and says, “Better get some sleep if we want to get to work as soon as the sun comes up.”

He groans in protest but gives her another kiss before rolling over on his side. She wishes they could sleep in too, just stay in bed like this all day but they need to head into the nearest town for a supply run and the earlier they start the better.

That’s her life now and she wonders if she’s the only person who thinks it’s a better life than what she had before the world fell down. It’s not that she’s glad there are people suffering and millions who didn’t even make it through the first week. But for her, it changed her life for the better.

No longer does she have to pretend that she’s a billionaire heiress with no agenda while spending most nights wide awake planning her next moves or anticipating what is to come. All of that is far behind her now, and there are no more lies and no more secrets and when she takes a moment to realize that it makes her feel lighter than ever.

All it took was an apocalypse for her to finally understand happiness.

She hears Nolan sigh as he shifts to get comfortable, so she blows out the candle on the nightstand and settles in to sleep, resting her hand on his hip which gets a murmur of approval from him.

As she drifts off to sleep, she remembers the time he asked her if she thought that they only ended up together because the world ended. Nolan was always the one who knew her best and his love was unconditional even when she was at her worst, so maybe it would have happened regardless. But maybe the old Emily just never would have seen it or been able to accept that kind of love.

She didn’t know how to answer it then so she had just kissed him and said, “Everything is as it should be.”

And it is.


End file.
